Study: "Discussions of D.C. public school options in an online forum" (yes, this one)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:the writer of this study is involved in the "integrated schools" movement.

I think some of the conversations there have led parents to believe that the main hold-up to integrated schools is white parents who chose segregation over and over again for individual reasons. As a trend, this makes integrated schools impossible. It calls into question the ethics of "i have to do the best thing for me kid."

This is the kind of discussion I’d like to have more of.

What else did the authors write? What perspective do they come from?

Do they not understand that DCUM is an anonymous forum and can be/is trolled or manipulated?
Have the authors been living under a rock when all of political science and history and media are discussing disinformation online?!?

[Anonymous]

i would love to know what Jeff thinks about school integration

[Anonymous]

I haven't read the full paper, but its conclusions don't seem very controversial as they're in line with other research, as the authors themselves have noted. Jeff may take issue with some of the methodology or research ethics, but it's been shown in other work that when white parents have a choice, they tend to choose schools with more white students. This of course won't apply to *every* white family; we're talking about general trends in the data. I've certainly seen this myself as a black parent IB for Shepherd, but anecdata aside, it's been found in other research even when adjusting for other factors.

For example, anyone recall this "revealed preferences" Mathematica study of the DC lottery a few years ago?


"The researchers tested a broad range of factors that could explain why parents choose a school: its proximity to a family’s home, test scores, after-school activities, uniform policies, class size, the crime and income levels of the surrounding neighborhood, and the racial and socio-economic makeup of the school’s student body. Only three of these factors significantly drove parental choice. Parents preferred high test scores, schools closer to home, and schools where their own child would be alongside more peers of his or her same race and class.

Across race and class, a middle-school parent was 12 percent more likely to choose a school where his child’s race made up 20 percent of the study body, compared with a school with similar test scores where his child’s race made up only 10 percent of the study body. White and higher-income applicants had the strongest preferences for their children to remain in-group, while black elementary school parents were essentially “indifferent” to a school’s racial makeup, the researchers found. The findings for Hispanic elementary and middle school parents were not statistically significant.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2016/07/when-white-parents-have-a-choice-they-choose-segregated-schools.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the writer of this study is involved in the "integrated schools" movement.

I think some of the conversations there have led parents to believe that the main hold-up to integrated schools is white parents who chose segregation over and over again for individual reasons. As a trend, this makes integrated schools impossible. It calls into question the ethics of "i have to do the best thing for me kid."

This is the kind of discussion I’d like to have more of.

What else did the authors write? What perspective do they come from?

Do they not understand that DCUM is an anonymous forum and can be/is trolled or manipulated?
Have the authors been living under a rock when all of political science and history and media are discussing disinformation online?!?

Vanessa Williamson is the author: https://scholar.harvard.edu/williamson/home

[Anonymous]

The second author, Jackson Gode, graduated in 2014 from The Seattle Academy, a “top-rated private” high school in Seattle.
Its tuition is $38,000 per year.

https://facebook.com/seattleacademy/posts/2363749686994407

Not sure about Mr. Gode’s parents, or his role in his schooling decisions, but (at least for now) I’m a parent sending my kids to DCPS and putting my money where my mouth is.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:i would love to know what Jeff thinks about school integration

What do you mean by "school integration"? I consider a diverse student body to be a strength. Every school my kids have attended has been integrated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the writer of this study is involved in the "integrated schools" movement.

I think some of the conversations there have led parents to believe that the main hold-up to integrated schools is white parents who chose segregation over and over again for individual reasons. As a trend, this makes integrated schools impossible. It calls into question the ethics of "i have to do the best thing for me kid."

This is the kind of discussion I’d like to have more of.

What else did the authors write? What perspective do they come from?

Do they not understand that DCUM is an anonymous forum and can be/is trolled or manipulated?
Have the authors been living under a rock when all of political science and history and media are discussing disinformation online?!?

This podcast is excellent: https://integratedschools.org/podcasts/

[Anonymous]

Well, I'd like to see them tackle the colleges and universities forum next.

[Anonymous]

Vanessa Williamson wrote a book about the Tea Party with Theda Skocpol, whose work I greatly respect.

https://newrepublic.com/article/106198/timothy-noah-why-tea-party-senior-citizens-love-paul-ryan

If I remember the book correctly, they do a good job discussing that Tea Partiers are misled by the GOP elite — the book was one of the few voices back in 2015/2016 willing to note that people like Paul Ryan outright lie to their voters. But I also remember thinking they downplayed the extent to which Fox/Glenn Beck/Koch/AfP created and sustained the Tea Party — which was an elite-fueled movement (through conservative media mainly, but also Koch money.)

So, she wrote at least one good book w/ Skocpol.

[Anonymous]

^sorry, 2012-2015 timeframe.
Back then Ezra Klein was still taking Paul Ryan completely at his word. It was rare for anyone to be taking the stance in the book that the Tea Party crowd was fueled by deceit from politicians.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^sorry, 2012-2015 timeframe.
Back then Ezra Klein was still taking Paul Ryan completely at his word. It was rare for anyone to be taking the stance in the book that the Tea Party crowd was fueled by deceit from politicians.

Please don’t derail this thread. The topic is the article. Where the authors send their kids is relevant. What other books they wrote and why is out of scope here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the writer of this study is involved in the "integrated schools" movement.

I think some of the conversations there have led parents to believe that the main hold-up to integrated schools is white parents who chose segregation over and over again for individual reasons. As a trend, this makes integrated schools impossible. It calls into question the ethics of "i have to do the best thing for me kid."

This is the kind of discussion I’d like to have more of.

What else did the authors write? What perspective do they come from?

Do they not understand that DCUM is an anonymous forum and can be/is trolled or manipulated?
Have the authors been living under a rock when all of political science and history and media are discussing disinformation online?!?

+1

How do they know a poster’s race? I’m sure lots of people on here claim to be a different gender, race, SES on this site when they post.

I am a HS teacher and have heard kids talking about this site and the stupid stuff they will write to instigate responses. How is this possibly a study with strong research methods?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^sorry, 2012-2015 timeframe.
Back then Ezra Klein was still taking Paul Ryan completely at his word. It was rare for anyone to be taking the stance in the book that the Tea Party crowd was fueled by deceit from politicians.

Please don’t derail this thread. The topic is the article. Where the authors send their kids is relevant. What other books they wrote and why is out of scope here.

Ah, it's an anonymous thread. It's probably Vanessa posting it, but we'll never know.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just a funny observation- shining stars comes up several times as a frequently mentioned school... but I’m pretty sure every post I’ve ever seen about it is negative

Yes. I made this point on Twitter. Just because a school gets mentioned a lot doesn't mean that it is popular. Some schools get mentioned a lot because posters criticize them. That is a shortcoming of just doing quantitative analysis and the sort of thing that I have insight on, had they bothered to contact me.

Having been the victim of critical academic research on my work which similarly did not involve me, I sympathize.

My take on this is that someone thought using machine learning was sexy and so they applied it here (ooh word frequency!) without much actual thought.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^sorry, 2012-2015 timeframe.

Please don’t derail this thread. The topic is the article. Where the authors send their kids is relevant. What other books they wrote and why is out of scope here.

Absolutely not.
Science proceeds by reputation all the time.

Peer reviewers cannot catch every error in a paper. And this paper isn’t even peer reviewed, right?

Science relies on reputation. If the authors did good or bad work in the past, that is highly relevant for the quality of their later work.

I will try to go through the DCUM Brookings article in detail later.
Beyond the obvious critique that DCUM is anonymous and so we don’t know if posters are being honest or consistent, are there other flaws?